No Arabic abstract
Cosmic dusts are mostly responsible for polarization of the light that we ob- serve from astrophysical objects. They also lead to color-extinction, thermal re- emission and other scattering related phenomena. Dusts are made of small particles which are characterised by their size (radius), composition (matter), and structure (morphology, including porosity). In the present work, we address the question of the role of the dust particle porosity on light polarization and color, using Discrete Dipole Approximation (DDA) light scattering code. To answer this question, we developed an algorithm to generate solid particles of arbitrary values of porosity. In brief, the model considers a given homogeneous structure made of touching dipoles. The dipoles are randomly removed one by one, such that the remaining structure remains connected. We stop the removal process when the desired poros- ity is obtained. Then we study the optical properties of the porous particle. That way, we show how the proper value of the porosity affects the polarization and color of the light scattered by these porous particles. In addition to polarization, porosity has important effects on photometric color. Considering an important application, we emphasize the possible role of the porosity of the cometary dust particles on polarization and color of the light scattered by cometary coma.
It has been suggested that the comet-like activity of Main Belt Comets is due to the sublimation of sub-surface water-ice that is exposed when these objects are impacted by meter-sized bodies. We recently examined this scenario and showed that such impacts can in fact excavate ice and present a plausible mechanism for triggering the activation of MBCs (Haghighipour et al. 2016). However, because the purpose of that study was to prove the concept and identify the most viable ice-longevity model, the porosity of the object and the loss of ice due to the heat of impact were ignored. In this paper, we extend our impact simulations to porous materials and account for the loss of ice due to an impact. We show that for a porous MBC, impact craters are deeper, reaching to approximately 15 m implying that if the activation of MBCs is due to the sublimation of sub-surface ice, this ice has to be within the top 15 m of the object. Results also indicate that the loss of ice due to the heat of impact is negligible, and the re-accretion of ejected ice is small. The latter suggests that the activities of current MBCs are most probably from multiple impact sites. Our study also indicates that in order for sublimation from multiple sites to account for the observed activity of the currently known MBCs, the water content of MBCs (and their parent asteroids) needs to be larger than the values traditionally considered in models of terrestrial planet formation.
Aims: In this paper we present a case study to investigate conditions necessary to detect a characteristic magnetic field substructure embedded in a large-scale field. A helical magnetic field with a surrounding hourglass shaped field is expected from theoretical predictions and self-consistent magnetohydrodynamical (MHD) simulations to be present in the specific case of protostellar outflows. Hence, such an outflow environment is the perfect for our study. Methodes: We present synthetic polarisation maps in the infrared and millimeter regime of protostellar outflows performed with the newly developed RT and polarisation code POLARIS. The code, as the first, includes a self-consistent description of various alignement mechanism like the imperfect Davis-Greenstein (IDG) and the radiative torque (RAT) alignment. We investigate for which effects the grain size distribution, and applied alignement mechanism have. Results: We find that the IDG mechanism cannot produce any measurable polarization degree (< 1 %) whereas RAT alignment produced polarization degrees of a few 1 %. Furthermore, we developed a method to identify the origin of the polarization. We show that the helical magnetic field in the outflow can only be observed close to the outflow axis and at its tip, whereas in the surrounding regions the hourglass field in the foreground dominates the polarization. Furthermore, the polarization degree in the outflow lobe is lower than in the surroundings in agreement with observations. We also find that the orientation of the polarization vector flips around a few 100 micron due to the transition from dichroic extinction to thermal re-emission. Hence, in order to avoid ambiguities when interpreting polarization data, we suggest to observed in the far-infrared and mm regime. Finally, we show that with ALMA it is possible to observe the polarization emerging from protostellar outflows.
The long-term dynamics of Oort cloud comets are studied under the influence of both the radial and the vertical components of the Galactic tidal field. Sporadic dynamical perturbation processes are ignored, such as passing stars, since we aim to study the influence of just the axisymmetric Galactic tidal field on the cometary motion and how it changes in time. We use a model of the Galaxy with a disc, bulge and dark halo, and a local disc density, and disc scale length constrained to fit the best available observational constraints. By integrating a few million of cometary orbits over 1 Gyr, we calculate the time variable flux of Oort cloud comets that enter the inner Solar System, for the cases of a constant Galactic tidal field, and a realistically varying tidal field which is a function of the Suns orbit. The applied method calculates the evolution of the comets by using first-order averaged mean elements. We find that the periodicity in the cometary flux is complicated and quasi-periodic. The amplitude of the variations in the flux are of order 30%. The radial motion of the Sun is the chief cause of this behaviour, and should be taken into account when the Galactic influence on the Oort cloud comets is studied.
The characterization of the dust polarization foreground to the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is a necessary step towards the detection of the B-mode signal associated with primordial gravitational waves. We present a method to simulate maps of polarized dust emission on the sphere, similarly to what is done for the CMB anisotropies. This method builds on the understanding of Galactic polarization stemming from the analysis of Planck data. It relates the dust polarization sky to the structure of the Galactic magnetic field and its coupling with interstellar matter and turbulence. The Galactic magnetic field is modelled as a superposition of a mean uniform field and a random component with a power-law power spectrum of exponent $alpha_{rm M}$. The model parameters are constrained to fit the power spectra of dust polarization EE, BB and TE measured using Planck data. We find that the slopes of the E and B power spectra of dust polarization are matched for $alpha_{rm M} = -2.5$. The model allows us to compute multiple realizations of the Stokes Q and U maps for different realizations of the random component of the magnetic field, and to quantify the variance of dust polarization spectra for any given sky area outside of the Galactic plane. The simulations reproduce the scaling relation between the dust polarization power and the mean total dust intensity including the observed dispersion around the mean relation. We also propose a method to carry out multi-frequency simulations including the decorrelation measured recently by Planck, using a given covariance matrix of the polarization maps. These simulations are well suited to optimize component separation methods and to quantify the confidence with which the dust and CMB B-modes can be separated in present and future experiments. We also provide an astrophysical perspective on our modeling of the dust polarization spectra.
(abridged) In the inner regions of AGB outflows, several molecules have been detected with abundances much higher than those predicted from thermodynamic equilibrium (TE) chemical models. The presence of the majority of these species can be explained by shock-induced non-TE chemical models, where shocks caused by the pulsating star take the chemistry out of TE in the inner region. Moreover, a non-uniform density structure has been detected in several AGB outflows. A detailed parameter study on the quantitative effects of a non-homogeneous outflow has so far not been performed. We implement a porosity formalism for treating the increased leakage of light associated with radiation transport through a clumpy, porous medium. The effects from the altered UV radiation field penetration on the chemistry, accounting also for the increased reaction rates of two-body processes in the overdense clumps, are examined. We present a parameter study of the effect of clumping and porosity on the chemistry throughout the outflow. Both the higher density within the clumps and the increased UV radiation field penetration have an important impact on the chemistry, as they both alter the chemical pathways. The increased amount of UV radiation in the inner region leads to photodissociation of parent species, releasing the otherwise deficient elements. We find an increased abundance in the inner region of all species not expected to be present assuming TE chemistry, such as HCN in O-rich outflows, H$_2$O in C-rich outflows, and NH$_3$ in both. Outflows whose clumps have a large overdensity and that are very porous to the interstellar UV radiation field yield abundances comparable to those observed in O- and C-rich outflows for most of the unexpected species investigated. The inner wind abundances of H$_2$O in C-rich outflows and of NH$_3$ in O- and C-rich outflows are however underpredicted.